Classic drama draws people together

VietNamNet Bridge – Tinh Yeu va Khat Vong (Love and Aspiration), a classical drama written by Pham Ngoc Son, drew hundreds of viewers when it was performed in the central province of Phu Yen's Phu Hoa District on Wednesday night.

The performance was held to celebrate 400 years since the formation of the province as well as national tourism year 2011, which will open in Phu Yen tomorrow, April 2.

The drama praises the province's tutelary god Luong Van Chanh, who dedicated more than 30 years of his life, at the end of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th, to bringing together ethnic groups to break fresh ground in the southern parts of the nation to help shape the Phu Yen of today.

The ethnic groups included Cham, E De and Ba Na people.

Audience members, ranging from the elderly to children, said "it's great!" They burst into applause and smiles during scenes of feudal generals competing in archery contests and slaying a tiger.

The were silent as they absorbed a scene of Chanh monologing to himself about his inmost feelings.

The drama also features scenes about the love between Chanh and a beautiful Cham girl, but in the end the audience felt that above all was Chanh's love for his native soil and compatriots and his desire to create a beautiful and rich land of well-off people.

"The play's major themes are the love and harmonisation of people and the aspiration to construct a new land," said script writer Pham Ngoc Son.

"From now on, this land will be home for all three thousand people of the brother ethnic groups... Together we make rice from pebbles and stones...," he cited a few words from the piece.

The director of the Phu Yen Department of Culture, Sport and Tourism, Tran Van Nhat, said he expected the play would help people, especially younger generations, understand their origin and the great services their ancestors rendered to the homeland.